The Nasty Ecto Fries
by Quiet Leaf
Summary: In which the Winchesters interview Wes Weston and shenanigans follow. One-shot, written for the Phango event on Tumblr.


**If you don't know who Wes Weston is, he's a DP phandom OC who a lot of people love, (myself included) you can find out more by googling him.**

**Written for the Phandom Bingo (Phango) event over on Tumblr, prompts used are at the bottom**

**Enjoy!**

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The house was two stories, blue, with white borders. A normal house in a normal suburban neighborhood.

Dean sighed, straightening his tie. "Okay, why are we here again? I mean, ghost superhero? Pretty sure that's a load of tourist trap bullcrap."

Sam rolled his eyes, flipping open the folder in his hands. "Well," he said, consulting the text, "it sure makes an awful lot of property damage for a hoax."

"Yeah, that's because the mayor's in on it. Did you hear the way he talked? What a slimeball." He snatched the folder from Sam's hands, waving a hand at the collage of pictures on the first page. "And have you seen this jumpsuit? It's terrible. Look at that symbol on his chest—what the hell is that supposed to be?"

"I got Bobby on it, Dean." Sam took the folder and threw it in the back seat. "Come on. We've got a witness to interview."

Dean pushed open the door to the drivers side of the car, stepped out, and slammed it behind him, blinking in the light of the summer sun. He let Sam take the lead as they strode up to the front door. Sam pressed the doorbell, and they waited.

There was a sound of hurried footsteps, socks sliding on the floor, and a loud thud, then the rattling of a doorknob being fumbled with, and finally it was opened by a freckly, disheveled, red-haired teenager who was clutching his side.

"Hey," Sam put up his sunniest smile, "are you Wesley Weston?"

"It's Wes." The kid's eyes darted to and fro. "You the reporters from Daily News?"

Sam nodded. "Yes, I'm Sam McQueen, and this is my associate, Dean Reid. May we come inside?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course." Wes beckoned them inside with a lanky arm. Once they were both in the entryway, he poked his head out the door and had a long, paranoid look around before shutting it quietly. He led them into the living room and motioned them to the couch, sitting across from them in a puffy armchair.

"So Wes," Dean began, pulling out a notepad and pen, "you said you had some, uh, important information about this Danny Phantom. What is it exactly that you wanted to tell us?"

A wild gleam appeared in Wes' eye, and from beneath the coffee table he snatched an overstuffed black binder. A few loose scraps of paper fluttered to the ground, and Dean glimpsed words like, "ghost?" and "Fenton"—the local ghost hunters, with the son conspicuously named Danny. "_THIS_," Wes declared in a loud whisper, "is all the information I've compiled on Phantom over the last three years. Everything the public needs to know is in here, from his favorite color to his secret identity."

Sam blinked, taken aback, and Dean could confidently say that this kid seemed a little nuts.

"Secret identity…?" Sam said slowly, his own notepad in hand.

Wes nodded frantically, the gleam in his eyes reaching blinding levels of intensity. "Yes, based on a number of factors, I have concluded that the ghost boy is secretly…" He slammed the binder down on the coffee table and dramatically flipped it open. "...Danny Fenton!"

Dean leaned closer to peer at the photos, though not too close—he didn't want to be within striking distance of this kid.

The first picture was a candid of a smiling Danny Fenton, eating fries in the Nasty Burger restaurant on the other side of town. The second was a slightly blurry image of Phantom, punching some kind of animalistic "ghost" with a fierce expression on his face.

Dean looked from one to the other for a minute, comparing build and coloring and facial structure, and came to the only natural conclusion. He let out a groan, leaning back in his chair. "So it really is a hoa—ow!"

Sam withdrew his elbow from where it had been digging into Dean's ribs, his polite smile still pasted perfectly in place. "Really? That's fascinating." He started scribbling something on his notepad. "What are the factors that led you to this conclusion?"

"Well, the first hint was this—" He pointed to the photos. "—I mean, it's immediately obvious that they look really similar, right? Like the only difference is the hair and eyes. And then—" He flipped to the next page, a graph. "—we have some classes together and I noticed that whenever there's about to be a ghost attack, Fenton just happens to leave right before Phantom appears. On top of that," he flipped the page again, "whenever Phantom is seen in public, Fenton isn't there. Just poof, completely vanished—I've asked around, no one sees him." Wes swung his head up to look them both in the eyes, breathing heavily now. "Danny Fenton is _half ghost_." And with a note of desperation in his voice, "You believe me, right?"

Dean rustled up an agreeable grin. "Of course we do. We'll make sure this goes through all the right channels, it might even end up on the front page." He gave the kid a firm pat on his shaking shoulder and stood. "We'll be sure to follow up on this soon, but now it's getting late, we should be going. Thank you for your time, Wes. Come on, Sam."

"But you've only been here for three minutes!" Wes protested.

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was never made it out, because Dean got there first. "We are very busy people, Mr. Weston, and we can't spend all our time today with you. Don't worry, we'll be calling to set up another appointment later." He speedwalked to and through the door before he could hear whatever protests were sent his way next, Sam right behind him.

"Seriously, Dean?" Sam hissed as they climbed into the car. "He could've been onto something. Weirder things have happened."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? You could fertilize a field with that much bullcrap. I am not going to believe that a superpowered teenager is living is this town fighting 'ghosts'—I mean, those aren't even ghosts! They all look like they came out of Ghostbusters, and according to reports, they're much more… interesting than real ghosts." He plugged the keys into the ignition and pulled into the road.

Sam turned his gaze to the windshield. "I guess it doesn't make much sense when you put it that way." He chuckled. "Actually, it's pretty ridiculous—you might be right about the whole hoax thing. And Mayor Masters is definitely making money off this."

Dean's brow furrowed. "You know, didn't it seem like he had a weird obsession with Maddie Fenton?"

Ten minutes later they pulled into the Nasty Burger parking lot for a late lunch. They'd been by yesterday as well, and found that despite the name of the place, the food actually wasn't terrible. Though their "nasty sauce" was… really something.

Dean perused the menu thoughtfully. "I'll have a… number two," he informed the grumpy goth girl behind the counter, whose name tag read "Samantha". "And, uh, no onions please."

She punched the order in with a little more force than strictly necessary and then turned to Sam with a disdainful raised eyebrow.

"I'll have the Nasty Salad," Sam said.

"Really, Sam? Just a salad?"

Samantha looked confused for a second before wiping the expression off her face.

Sam sent him a glare. "Fine. And a small fry."

"Finally, someone with taste," the girl muttered, then louder, "And to drink?"

"Just water."

Samantha typed in Sam's order with much less aggression, then handed them cups and sent them on their way to the soft drinks station. Drinks in hand, they took their seats in a booth by a window.

"So," Dean said after taking a sip from his soda. "That kid was kinda crazy."

"Dean," Sam admonished.

"What? That was some stalker level obsession. He had _pages_ of random info on—"

"Do you think anyone would notice if I put some ecto on my fries?"

Dean stopped. Twisted around to look.

On the other side of the aisle, one booth down, sat Danny Fenton, holding an open thermos whose contents were definitely glowing green.

"If you keep talking so loudly, yeah," hissed the black kid seated across from him. "But I dunno, give it a shot. I bet Vlad would be scandalized."

"Tucker… that is an excellent point." Fenton smirked and overturned the thermos on his fries. The green glowing substance came oozing slowly out with a similar consistency to ketchup, though it somewhat resembled ectoplasm.

Dean turned to exchange a glance with Sam, whose eyebrows were so far up his forehead he was afraid they might fly away. He leaned over the table and hissed, "Do you have the EMF meter?"

Sam nodded, reaching into his jacket and pulling out said ghost detector. He switched it on, pulled out the antenna, and flicked it off again when it immediately started making a high-pitched whining noise.

The Fenton kid's head snapped in their direction, eyes narrowed. Dean froze with his hand halfway to the salt packets. Fenton's eyes were unblinking, unnerving. Not normal.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, SAM, JUST TAKE YOUR LUNCH BREAK!"

The moment was broken.

The door to the kitchen slammed open, and Samantha—or Sam, it seemed—came storming out. She flung herself into the seat next to Tucker, laid her head on the table, and gave a drawn-out groan. "I hate this place."

"Maybe you should quit," Tucker suggested.

"And have my parents make me work somewhere worse? No thank you." She sat up. "Also, I'm pretty sure they're paying my boss to make sure my name tag says Samantha."

Fenton picked up a possibly ectoplasm-covered fry and popped it into his mouth. "How about we—"

"_Order sixty-six please, order sixty-six."_

Dean glanced at his receipt. "That's us. You go get the food, I'll watch them." He turned back to their table, keeping one conspicuous eye on the teenagers.

As soon as Sam was out of earshot, Fenton grabbed his fries and stood up. "You know what Sam, I bet you're sick of Nasty Burger food. Let's go somewhere else for your lunch."

"_Please_," Sam agreed.

"But—" Tucker started.

Fenton sent him a sharp look. "No, Tucker, we really should go somewhere else." His eyes flicked to Dean and back. "It's getting a little crowded, don't you think?"

Dean quickly turned his head away, but he was pretty sure Fenton's friends had spotted him anyway.

"Oh yeah, I guess it is getting kinda stuffy in here," Tucker said. "C'mon."

Sam came back with the food in to-go bags as the kids were hightailing it out the door.

Dean shot to his feet, grabbing both their drinks and a couple salt packets. "Let's follow them."

"Dean, don't you think this might look a little creepy? Two guys following a few teenagers? The EMF might have just been coming from the restaurant."

He dropped the drinks in the garbage and pushed the door open. "Yeah, but I've got a gut feeling. Something's weird about that kid. Also, ecto fries."

Sam frowned. "I thought we weren't going to believe Wes about this."

"We're not! He was definitely wrong about the Phantom thing, but he was right that something's off."

Fenton and his friends were waiting at the crosswalk down the block. Dean went ahead while Sam dropped the food off in the car, and he tailed them from about half a dozen yards. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were casting around a lot of shifty glances.

A look behind him told him Sam was hanging back. Dean gave a nod of approval—it was much more noticeable when two tall men were trailing a couple kids than when there was just one. Though it might look like Sam was stalking him.

Two blocks later, Dean was sure they'd both been spotted. Fenton abruptly pulled his friends into an alley, and Dean sped up, brushing past other pedestrians, and turned down the alley to find it… empty.

Sam caught up a moment later, and Dean turned to face him with arms spread wide. "Well, that was a bust. They just disappeared!"

Sam rummaged around his pockets and pulled out the EMF meter again. It squealed and lit up bright red.

"Crud," muttered a sourceless voice down the alley.

"Show yourself!" Sam barked.

There was some shuffling, a flurry of whispers, and Fenton and his friends stepped out from behind a dumpster that shouldn't have been able to hide them.

The EMF got louder and brighter. Dean ripped open one of the salt packets and threw it.

Tucker let out a girly shriek, and Samantha and Fenton threw up their arms to shield their eyes. While they were distracted, Sam stowed the EMF and they both reached for their guns.

"What the heck? Is this salt?"

Dean stopped with his fingers on the handle of his colt.

Fenton was examining the salt on his hands with a look of utter confusion. It didn't seem to be affecting him at all.

Sam's arm lowered slightly. "Aren't you a ghost?"

All three of them froze.

"Of course Danny's not a ghost!" Tucker blurted out. "He's totally normal. Regular old teenager."

"Yeah!" Samantha smiled nervously. "Nothing to see here, just normal people doing normal people things."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Really? Then what was up with the EMF just now?"

Fenton gasped suddenly, his breath fogging in the warm air. "Get down!"

Dean ducked reflexively, Sam doing the same next to him. There was a flash of green light and an ear piercing shriek, and Dean looked up just in time to see a shapeless green blob go careening through the air, screeching horribly.

A nervous chuckle had him looking back at Danny. "Uh—I can explain?"

"You better," Dean growled. His fingers itched to grab his gun. "What are you, what was that, and what did you just do?"

"Um, well, you know who my parents are, right?"

"Yeah," Sam said slowly. "Jack and Maddie Fenton, the… ectobiologists."

"The _ghost hunters_," Danny emphasized. "They gave me and Sam and Tucker some weapons for in case ghosts attack. That was a ghost, by the way, the green thing? So I shot it with an ecto gun. That's what just happened."

"Ghost hunters?" Dean scoffed. "Yeah right, they couldn't catch a ghost if it was right under their noses. Their phony science is hardly 'ghost hunting'."

Danny's eyes narrowed. The temperature dropped several degrees, and if he wasn't much mistaken, the kid's eyes had turned a radioactive green.

His hand flew to his gun before he could think about it and aimed at the thing in front of them in one smooth movement.

"Danny!" Samantha hissed.

The kid blinked and the glow was gone. He paled, normal blue eyes flicking from Dean's face to the gun and back again. "Double crud."

"So kid," Dean said, voice low, "_what_ are you?"

Fenton shifted. His gaze darted from alley wall to alley wall to the entrance, which was blocked by Dean and Sam. His two friends were equally tense, Samantha clutching something in her pocket that was probably dangerous.

Tucker held up his phone. "I-if you don't put that down—" He gulped. "I'm calling the police."

"Dean," Sam said, "I don't think he's planning to hurt anyone. We should talk."

Dean looked the kid in the eyes for a long moment, then nodded. He relaxed his stance, lowered the gun slowly, and tucked it into the back of his jeans again. "You can relax. Safety wasn't even off."

"I feel so much better," Samantha muttered.

They ignored her.

"What happened just now?" Sam demanded.

Danny took a deep breath. "If I tell you this, you have to promise you won't tell anyone. I could get in huge trouble if some people found out, you have no idea—and you have to promise you won't try to kill me!"

"Okay," Sam agreed, "we won't tell anyone. And we won't try to kill you." _Unless we have to,_ was the unspoken addition that only Dean knew was there.

"Danny, you're seriously going to tell these guys?" Tucker exclaimed. "I thought this was supposed to be a secret!"

"Yeah, well, they already know I'm not normal. If I tell them they might think twice before trying to end me, and if I don't they might just try to hunt me down anyway." He looked Dean in the eyes, and his resolve almost seemed to falter for a second. "I'm—" He swallowed heavily. "I'm half ghost."

Dean's train of thought screeched to a stop, but not before bowling over his precariously balanced sense of normal. "Excuse me?"

Now that the words had left his mouth Fenton appeared to be unable to stop talking. "Well, I kinda went into my parents' ghost portal and got shocked and now I'm half dead, we don't actually know how it works, but we're trying to figure it out, kinda."

"Next thing you know he's gonna be telling us he's actually Danny Phantom," Dean grumbled.

"Yeah… about that…"

Dean's jaw dropped. "So you're saying the Weston kid was right?"

The trio's faces scrunched up in matching expressions of distaste.

"Seriously? You talked to Wes?" Danny shuddered. "He's always trying to out me. And he's been kinda more nuts than usual lately. He followed me with a camera for six blocks yesterday."

"Creepy," Sam muttered.

"So you get ghost powers," Dean said slowly, "and the first thing you do is become a freaking superhero?"

"Uh, not quite first thing, but yeah, pretty much." Danny grinned sheepishly.

"Wait," Sam interrupted. "So if all the stuff going on around here is real, what's with all the ghosts?"

"Well, they've been escaping the Ghost Zone through the portal," Danny explained matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but… why do they look like that?"

Danny's face turned to a puzzled frown. "What do you mean? They're ghosts. Aren't you guys ghost hunters? You should know what they look like."

"These ghosts you have don't look anything like what we've seen. Yours are…" Sam trailed off. "Very colorful. More inhuman, and more powerful. We actually thought it was some kind of show put on for tourists, though the property damage was weird enough. That's why we came to check it out in the first place…"

"Huh. I thought this was normal. I think I've only met one ghost that wasn't crazy weird, a kid at my school."

"Maybe it's a different type of ghost," Sam suggested. "Or something else entirely."

"Uh, no," Danny scoffed, "I'm definitely half dead, not part monster-from-another-dimension, or whatever."

"Right, different type it is," Dean decided.

Sam frowned like a thought had just come to him. "Did you notice the mayor has a weird obsession with your mom?"

Danny hesitated. "Yeah. I noticed. I can't really do anything about it, though."

"Why not?" Dean raised his hands. "You have ghost powers, why not go in there and set him straight?"

"I _can't. _It's complicated." He looked down at his shoes, then back up again. "So, you guys sticking around, or are you gonna take off now that you know what's going on?"

Dean exchanged a glance with Sam. "You got everything handled here? Your parents helping?"

Danny shrugged. "More or less. Mom and Dad do their best."

"They approve of you ghost hunting?"

His eyes shifted. "...Yeah. They've been trying to get me into it for ages."

"All right then. Here, gimme your phone."

Danny took a step back, hand drifting toward his pocket. "What? Why?"

"So I can put our numbers in it in case you ever need help. Come on." Dean gestured impatiently.

"It's fine, really, I have Sam and Tucker and my parents—"

"Yeah, and we can help you too. Never hurts to have extra backup."

Danny paused a moment longer, then sighed. "Fine, here you go."

He handed Dean a beat-up flip phone, and he wasted no time punching in two of his three numbers as well as Sam's. "If you run into a ghost that's different than the ones you're used to, more human—or anything else—and you don't know how to take it out, give us a call. All right?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Danny took the phone back and stared at it with an unreadable expression. "I will."

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**Prompts used: Crossover, Wes Weston, Sam works at the Nasty Burger, ghost hunger, and identity reveal.**

**-Quiet Leaf**


End file.
